if you love me
by sitvha
Summary: You wish you knew why he looks at you like you're tearing him apart inside. (kakashi/iruka android au)
_note: So I never thought my first irukaka fic would be an android au and yet here we are. This is all because of my literature professor's creative writing exercise and I made it into something really emo. Gotta love that sad robot narrative!_

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You watch him tie his shoes because you like watching him. His slender fingers gracefully move around the laces and you think it looks like he cares for the laces much more than he does for his own health. You tell him as such and he makes a sound like a laugh but you know he's probably hiding a choked sob. He does this more often than not when you make small comments about him, about them, about anything really. He stands back up and you see his sad smile and you know with complete certainty that it was definitely not a laugh. You hate when he's sad, which also seems to be more often than not, but you try everything you can to make him happy even though it never seems to be enough.

You're the only one of your kind, he made sure of it, he told you it was because he didn't want you to think that you weren't precious, but you still think it has more to do with him not being able to stand seeing your likeness with another. It's not because he's jealous, but more that it would hurt him so much. A lot of things seem to hurt him and you don't completely understand why even though you've tried to. You just know that he's depressed and beautiful and desperately wish he wasn't the former.

When you first opened your eyes to him, you took in the details of his face so you could store them in your memory bank forever: the scar on his face that comes with a story he would never tell you, the black eyes that would haunt your every thought from that moment on, the imperfect lines that framed the perfect nose, the thin lips that were pulled into a small smile, the silver eyebrows that were scrunched together in disbelief, the glistening in his eyes as he looked over every inch of you.

The first thing you asked from him was to give you a name, making him escape his trance-like state over your body, but he didn't answer. He held your hands and brought them to his lips to kiss. You couldn't say anything, for he was shaking and holding your hand so tightly that you thought he could actually break it in half. You tried to ask him again a few more times, but you stopped because you didn't think he heard you over the loudness of his mind or the quietness of his breaths as he knelt down and held you close.

You don't know when you started to feel, but somehow he made you. You don't think it's possible to not feel even a little bit of anything for this man. Maybe it was the first time you made him smile, when you called him an idiot for not answering his friends' phone calls. He looked so innocent and vulnerable and _happy_ and you knew that you wanted him to keep doing it. Yes, that was probably it.

The smiles never lasted long though. His eyes would somehow darken even more than their usual black and he would look away, transporting himself a million lifetimes away from you. You never know what to do when that happens. You tried touching him once but he grabbed your wrist gently before you could, unable to look up at you for whatever reason he gave himself, still far away but not far enough to let himself be comforted. "Don't," he said, so you didn't.

The only times you touch are when he needs you, and that's ok because he makes you feel and you would do anything for him. He's never cruel, he could never be, he just holds more sadness than anyone should bear. He's so _sad_ and you want it to go away but you don't know if you're the answer even though you wish you were. He looks so tormented and broken, absolutely empty and without purpose, when he looks at you sometimes that it shocks your system. You were built for him, just for him, and you feel utterly useless against the weight of his unhappiness.

He finishes tying his shoes and stands up, closing the gap of a few steps between you and him, looking at you like he's dying and you really hope he's not because you don't know what you'll do if he does. He touches your face and you close your eyes because he tells you to. He kisses both your eyelids and his lips on you always make you forget that you're not human. Maybe it makes him forget too.

"What are you thinking about?"

He kisses your mouth and you kiss back because the warmth you feel inside has to be real, it _has to be_.

"Open your eyes, love."

The way his voice breaks on "love" doesn't go unnoticed by you. He's never called you anything before and you think the warmth inside of you might melt your inner parts, but you'd gladly let it happen.

You open your eyes to see that his are closed, with eyebrows scrunched together and teardrops collecting on his long eyelashes, his body unmoving.

"What are you thinking about?" you ask again, lifting your hand to slowly brush his tears away because he touched you first and you know he'll let you. You touch the spot between his eyebrows to see if you can erase the wrinkle and you're disappointed that you can't. You feel like maybe someone once could.

You're not allowed in his room. You never asked why. Once, when you heard soft whispers and quiet hitches of breath, you couldn't stop from moving forward to peek through the crack of his door, slightly ajar. He was curled in on himself, holding something in his arms like it was the only thing keeping him alive, burying his face in it like he also wanted to drown in it. He was choking quietly over his incoherent babbling, but you thought you heard a name and you paid closer attention because you knew this name was what he needed. And he never even gave you one. It made you angry, it still makes you angry.

He kept mumbling the name over and over and over. He sounded like he was suffocating. You heard the wetness of his voice and wanted so badly to go inside but you weren't allowed, and he didn't touch you first. You backed away to leave, but the floor creaked and you froze as you saw his body tense in the darkness. He walked over to the door, holding his simultaneous life and death in his hands, which took the form of a sweater too large for his own body, and locked his eyes with yours. You had never seen evidence of his fallen tears before this moment, and you wish you never saw him at this new level of misery. You wish you never saw it because you know what he was telling you in that wretched, dead look he gave you.

 _You're not what I need_.

His eyes are still closed and he still hasn't answered your question, but you wait because it's all you can do and he may never answer and suddenly you hope he doesn't because you realize he called you a name and he's never called you anything before and something is very wrong.

"You want to know what I'm thinking about?"

His eyes are still closed and suddenly you know that when he opens them your whole world is going to fall apart.

You try to pull away from him but he holds onto you tighter and you can never deny him anything because you have never wanted to.

He opens his eyes.

"How much it's going to hurt when you're gone."

You wish with everything you have that it was possible for you to cry.

You wish you could run away but you know you can't, he's the only thing you know and the only reason you're here. You're only for him, you're nothing else. But you wish you could leave, just for a moment, just to forget for a second that he didn't say those words. You're staring at him with wide eyes but with an otherwise blank look on your face. You're screaming on the inside but you can't even open your mouth to say anything.

He's not looking at you now, like humans do when they're ashamed, but you're looking right at him.

"Please stop looking at me like that," he said quietly after a few moments, still not raising his head to look at you.

"H-How... do you want me to look at you?" You stumble over your words at first, still shaking inside, still staring right at his hooded eyes.

"Dammit don't ask me that! Why would you ask me that?!"

He's looking at you now but you've never seen this much anger in his eyes or heard it in his voice and it makes you jump and recoil away from him slightly. You're not scared, you could never be scared of him, but you're _so_ scared of what he's saying.

He must notice something in your face because he softens his own and takes a step closer to you, and you don't step back. He puts his hand on your shoulder and it's so cold on your synthetic skin. You only remember his hand ever being warm.

"Why would you ask me that?" He asks again, quieter.

You try to find your voice, he's asking you something and he looks so sad and you don't want him to be sad, and you want to know why he's doing this to himself and to you.

"Because I want whatever it is that you want." You just need him to be happy. Why can't you ever make him happy?

He brings his other hand to your other shoulder and that hand is also cold. He stares at you with so much pity and you can't tell if it's more for himself or for you.

"I'm so sorry. I can't do this anymore. You're destroying me."

You know with your whole nonexistent heart that nothing he could ever say would hurt more than that. Your entire make-up and existence is for him, to be a part of his life and to do everything you can to make him ok. And he just told you that you're _destroying_ him.

"Why?"

He holds your face and steps even closer to you. You wish he wouldn't because you can't take it, you can't take him being this close to you and telling you that you're nothing he wants and everything that's ruining him. You feel like you're going to break.

"Every look, every word, every breath, every touch... every little thing... I think you're _him_ for half a second, then I lose him all over again."

Oh. You see now. You see that oversized sweater he holds onto like a lifeline, you see the quiet tear rolling down his face after you smile at him and push his hair out of his eyes, you see him reach for you desperately and lay his head on your lap while he holds your hands, you see him flinch away from you when you try to kiss his cheek, you see him completely shattered whenever he looks at you too long. You see now that he sees someone else, the one who has a name, the one who's enough.

"But you're not... you're _not him_. I can't... I can't do this to him."

It hurts. It hurts so badly.

"You're not him. You never were."

You can't hold it together anymore, you push him away and sit on the floor because you can't stand on your feet anymore.

"Who was he?"

You ask this quietly, looking at your hands that are resting in your lap. You know it's all over now, and you know it's going to be painful, but you want to know who it was that made him so happy, so much happier than you probably ever could, and who has so much power that he's now making him so miserable.

He doesn't respond for a while, then he's walking towards you and sitting across from you, keeping his hands on his knees and not on you, and you don't know why it upsets you because he doesn't touch you all the time but right now it feels devastating.

"His name was Umino Iruka. I loved him more than anything. I still do. Should I tell you about him?"

You can tell he wants to, so you nod your head while still keeping eye contact with your hands. Very human-like. It's small things like this that make you realize how he has taken over you.

"He was... he was everything to me. He was so gentle but also had the worst kind of temper on him, he made me believe in myself when I couldn't, he was the kindest person I've ever known. He always loved kissing my tummy because he loved hearing me laugh and feeling my hands in his hair... he loved when I touched his hair. He had me, he had all of me. He still does. He made me feel so good. All the time, every single moment, even when we fought I felt good because he was there. Sometimes, he was the only reason I got out of bed. I would look at him sleeping next to me, his hair would always be poured over his face and shoulders, and I'd move it out of the way to see him. His eyes would flutter open and I swear my heart would stop from disbelief that he was mine. And the way he looked when he just woke up... he had the warmest eyes and most beautiful smile... he was _so_ beautiful. He would make me smile for real."

You slowly look up as he talks, and by the end you're looking at him in slight wonder because he was smiling for real right now, you know because you've never seen him look like this before. You've never heard him talk this much before, you've never heard his voice sound this free and elated. You've never seen him so uncaring and in such utter bliss. He's smiling and he's crying while looking off to the side, but he doesn't look like he's a million lifetimes away this time, he's just remembering and he's so _happy_. He's smiling and he's crying while looking off to the side, but he doesn't look like he's a million lifetimes away this time, he's just remembering. You can see how much he loves him and it's killing you, but you also feel relief that he was loved this much and that he loved in return, and warmth towards this man who caused it. Umino Iruka must have truly been special. You hate that you couldn't be.

"What happened to him?"

He looks up at you and the smile is gone, which you regret because it made you feel good even though you didn't put it there.

"He died. Last year. He was sick. We were together for 10 years."

You know there's so much there that he can't say, so many intense moments of fighting and loving and crying and misery, bedside memories of holding hands and kissing foreheads and holding each other as tight as possible and never wanting to let go and seeing the one he loves die before his eyes. It pains you to think of him like this, hurting so much because the one he loves isn't here and he had to see the light leave his eyes. They must have been so bright before, you can tell just by the way he talked about him.

You stare into his eyes and you see some of it, you can never see all of it, but you see some of the pain he holds and you know it's nothing compared to the amount he has inside. You wanted so badly to take it away for him, you wanted to be what he needed and wanted, and maybe you are in look but it's not enough. It was never enough and never will be and you think you get it. You think you understand because how you feel about him not being with you must be nothing compared to being that in love with someone and seeing him slowly disappear. You love him though, you love him with everything you have. You know you're not real but he made you feel human.

"I'm sorry." For his love dying, that he watched him die, for not being able to make him happy. You think he can see all that you mean.

"Me too." And you know he means more too. For not being able to save his love, for creating a fake version of him because he couldn't take being without him, for hurting himself even more, for disrespecting his love's memory, for hurting you in the process.

He crawls over to you and grabs your face again and looks at you, inspecting every part of you and you can see the final understanding and acceptance reach his eyes. You know now that he never saw you, only his love, and he just fully accepted that you could never even come close.

Suddenly, he bends forward and puts his face in your neck. He's shaking and he grabs your arms tightly. He's crying harder now and you put your hand on his back because you will always hate seeing him like this.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry I'm so so sorry."

He keeps mumbling his sorries into your fake skin, the skin that isn't the one he wants. You know that these apologies aren't meant for you. He's sorry for what happened to his love, he's sorry that he's going to turn off the thing that looks like him. He's going to see his love die again, he's going to cause it, but you're not his love. You never were.

"Shh, Kakashi. It's not your fault. None of it is." You're still hurting but you need him to understand that he's not to blame, he's just a man who wanted to stop suffering, even just a little bit.

"It has to be."

"It's not. You're a good man. You wanted to feel something."

Instead he made _you_ feel something.

He stayed there for a little while longer, his cries slowly subsiding, then he pulls away with his hands still on your arms, rubbing them slowly. He still looks so defeated, but he also seems more peaceful than he has in a long time.

"How is it that you're so much like him sometimes?"

The question shocks you because you don't think you are. You never made him feel an ounce of what he felt for Umino Iruka, you know that without any doubt. Every time he kissed you, touched you, spoke to you... every single time wasn't for you. But he still makes you _feel_.

"I'm not though."

It isn't as hard to say out loud as you thought it would be. You just need him to be ok, even if you never will be, even if all you'll ever know again is darkness, you need him to make it.

He nods sadly. "Yeah. You're right."

"Do you know that I love you."

He looks at you and brushes the hair out of your face. He knows it wasn't a question.

"Thank you. For being with me."

After everything, those words are the ones that make you feel content.

Even if he doesn't mean it, you feel so good inside and you're smiling harder than you ever have before. You're looking at him with as much love as you can show and you think he sees it because he smiles a little too, not as sincerely as he did when he spoke of his love but it's still a good smile.

He starts talking to you, saying little meaningless things, how you dealt with so much from him, how you helped him move on, how he'll miss seeing your face even if it's not the real one, and you see him reaching his hand behind your neck and you know what he's about to do but you're still smiling, still looking at him like he's the world and he is.

He hesitates for a moment and you put your hand on his arm and quietly tell him it's alright, that he can do this. He's going to be ok without seeing his love's face, he's going to be ok even though you're going to fade away. It's not going to be the same, not even close, you're not him, you never were. He said so himself. He's going to be alright.

He gives you one last smile, and it's a little heartbreaking but of course it has to be, you have the face of the one he loves more than anything.

He closes your eyelids and kisses them again. You feel good. You feel happy. You hope he will too, so badly, even though it was never you.

You feel him touch the switch on your neck and his other hand is on your cheek. You tell him you're ready and he brushes his thumb under your eye, wiping away the invisible tears.

He puts his forehead on yours and you hear him take a deep breath in.

You don't feel the air blow back on your face.


End file.
